First things first. Aid is good. It helps children go to school, provides medicine to the sick and shelter to the homeless. It protects the weak and destitute from the worst brutalities of this world. This government is likely to meet its promise to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income on international aid this year â€“ a long standing commitment made by many countries and delivered by few. This is something that should make us all proud.
But there's a problem with aid and with the promises that are made on its behalf. In particular, there is a problem with the hundreds of millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money that is being poured into Pakistan. I hope some of these will be laid bare when the Select Committee on International Development publishes its report on Pakistan on Thursday.
The decision to re-organise the way Britain's Department for International (DfID) spends its Â£10 billion was made two years ago when Andrew Mitchell was in charge. His review of spending was in many ways sensible, switching cash away from countries such as China and Russia which are wealthy enough to run their own foreign aid projects (and space programmes). The big winner was Pakistan which is now on course to become the biggest recipient of British foreign aid â€“ some Â£450 million per year by 2015.
It's what Sir Humphrey might have called a "brave" decision.
Pakistan is officially a middle-income country with enough of its own cash to be expanding its nuclear arsenal. It has one of the lowest tax collection rates in the world and two thirds of its MPs don't pay any income tax at all. Its government accounts are so disorganised it couldn't even tell you how much it was spending on education if you asked. One expert tells me $10 billion is stashed in some of these off-the-books accounts.
So why should the British government step in to solve Pakistan's problems, particularly at a time when austerity measures mean our own services have been cut to the bone?
The answer, at least according to DfID, is that a developed and prospering Pakistan is in all our interests, reducing illegal (and, I guess, legal) migration and the threat of terrorism. It is spelled out in the review (PDF):Building a stable, prosperous and democratic Pakistan will help not only the millions of Pakistani people who live in poverty, but also build a safer world.Theresa May, the Home Secretary, elucidated it most clearly in a speech to police officers (who proved an unreceptive audience):
"If you get aid right in certain parts of the world, such as Pakistan, it will reduce the possibility of terrorism on the streets of the UK," she said.
The theory is obvious. More schools would keep young Pakistanis out of madrassahs, where they risk being radicalised, and a decent education means they are less likely to end up unemployed, poor and angry. So far so good.
What is less obvious is whether the theory is true. Remember the 9/11 hijackers? They were well educated and from generally middle-class families. The Times Square bomber too came from a prosperous family and had settled legally in the US, working as a financial analyst.
No, the real threat to Britain is not poor young men from the badlands of North Waziristan, it is from our own home-grown radicals, as the example of the 7/7 bombers shows.
Of course, the training camps in Pakistan do remain a problem. Threats to the UK may originate there or British "clean skins" may be trained in areas controlled by the Pakistan Taliban or Haqqani network. Perhaps Britain's ambitions aid plans can protect our shores by depriving the camps of the local men who run, protect and supply them.
Maybe. But there is growing evidence that the US drone programme has already disrupted the bases, and that foreign volunteers no longer have the time to learn the sophisticated tradecraft they need to avoid detection and launch successful attacks in the West. For years, analysts have talked of "Kramer Jihadists" (after the Seinfeld character) â€“ bumbling radicals who make basic errors and who can be rounded up easily. That's not to say there is no threat â€“ but that the threat has changed.
And so far most of the academic studies into a link between poverty, democracy, education and terrorism have struggled to find much of a correlation. When they have, it has been the wrong one, suggesting poor people suffer more as a result of terrorism and are more likely to be turned away from extremism.
One recent review of the existing literature (described in this report) found that only a lack of civil liberties and high population growth correlated with terrorism. The roots of terror, the study concluded, were fiendishly complex and needed a lot more investigation. Common sense notions, it seems, are not enough.
In the same way, development would be easy if all it took was pouring cash into a fragile state. If that were the case, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and the rest would now be havens of liberal democracy and no longer in need of our money.
Aid is a good thing. But too often it is justified by good intentions and not enough evidence. The programme in Pakistan is a case in point. Our cash will send millions of young Pakistanis to school. Will it ease the threat to Britain or help Pakistan to prosperity? Will it stop young men blowing themselves up at Shia mosques in Lahore? Will the schools even stay open when the aid cash has moved on to another priority?
All these arguments might help justify foreign aid to political opponents when spending at home is being cut. The truth is a bit more complicated.

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Some comments:

It won't stop the ones hidden in this country just waiting their chance. Or even the ones out there that they don't know about. We need to shut our borders and stop bringing these people in and look after our own.

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I wish someone would give me money for not blowing up a tube train.
There's thousands of laws I'm not breaking every day, where's my money.

Today I was walking in a shopping center with my face covered because it was cold, security told me to remove the covering for security reasons, so I did, and asked them, 'what If I'd been a Muslim woman wearing a Hijab' to which I was told 'that's different because it's religious'.
If I had the time I'd be suing someone for discrimination (not that I believe we should have all these discrimination laws but, I'm beginning to think they could be a good way to make a living, Solicitors seem to do OK.

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Since Britain can not even halt the British Muslim Pakistani community in the UK becoming ever more extremist the idea that Britain could stop the Pakistani Muslim community in Pakistan becoming more extremist by shoveling money in to Pakistan, utterly defies all reasonable logic.

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What could this country do with Â£450 million? The Pakistani's don't even like us kuffar.

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That's a blatant lie, they like our little schoolgirls.

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They also like us when we spend money in their shops. Not that I try to, it's emergencies like if the cat runs out of food.

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Why are we giving by 2015 Â£450 million per year in aid to a failed state run by terrorists and thieves and Islamists and Jihadists?

Is it because our foreign aid office is run by the relatives and friends of the terrorists and thieves and Islamists and Jihadists who are running Pakistan?

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Pakistan is a prime example of how Islam works:-

1) Takiyya is rife - even towards its own citizens

2) Women are continually abused by its systems

3) It is busy bringing in more and more laws from the 7th century.

4) It makes an ideal out of Islamofascism

5) It exports the most intellectually backward, hate consumed, violent people to the West, in order to fulfill the obligation of "hijra" - to Islamise the kuffar in many of the myriad ways Jihad is encouraged.

We are governed by a collective of masochists - each time Pakistan smacks this country in the face with yet another instance of enablement of Islamic terrorism, all our series of pathetic governments can do is beg for more.

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"Why are we giving aid to Pakistan?"

Because our spineless governments haven't the guts to tackle the islamic menace, so as most of our homegrown terrorists originate from Pakistan they pay them jizya in the vain hope it will keep the maniacs quiescent while they are in power. In effect they are mortgaging our children's future just so they can avoid having to make difficult decisions.

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Because the Pakistani military-feudal-religious establishment have made an artform out of blackmail and the UK (and US) are stupid enough to keep paying billions of dollars into the coffers of the enemy.

If the US and UK cut all aid and refused educational visas, tourist visas and right-of-adode to wealthy Pakistanis and those with military and political connections and removed any such privileges already given, you would see a 180 degree about-turn in behaviour - suddenly and magically they would be able to shut down the terrorist factories, find members of jihadist groups and stop funding and providing sanctuary to the Taliban resulting in deaths of British and American troops.

It's a travesty - every day British troops fight, suffer and die in Afghanistan, and every day the idiots at DFiD pay their effective murderer.

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Pakistan is a terrorist state full of Islamic maniacs, and we have been importing these psychos and their poisonous, retarded Islamic culture for years.

However, look on tbe bright side. They've set themselves up in Islamic ghettoes like Bradford, and when the time comes, we'll be able to seal them off, and let nothing - no people or services - in or out. That will deal with them nicely.

Think it can't happen here? Don't be so sure...

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even if they are born here they treat England as a foreign country anyway. About three quarters of Pakistani men in Bradford marry their first cousins. Their kids clog up the hospitals because they've all got congenital disorders. I don't call these home-grown at all.

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disease eradication: In Pakistan polio vaccination is seen as a Jewish plot and where only recently five women workers were killed for helping eradicate this disease.

girls education: In Pakistan where girl schools are burnt and girls going to schools shot.

rather than having China take Pakistan into is lap Pakistan is well aware of this and is playing us off against the Chinese and the Russians. Pakistani hypocrisy and duplicitous ways is only all too obvious for all to see. And don't forget, Pakistan is also the biggest customer of Chinese military hardware, is on top of what it gets given away for free from the gullible Americans.

Pakistan is a lawless land that is responsible of destabilising the whole region (and indeed the world) and we're helping in keeping it that way.

Because
*you are getting a free of cost route to afghanistan
*You got an army that is fighting a war for you with there own people.
*Heck the nato trucks dont even pay the toll plaza tax let alone official tax.

But i will blame only our leaders.why the heck they dont charge each and every truck.

so after the closure of Supply through pakistan.the cost through the other altervative route was 6time more.than through Pakistan

Through Pakistan the cost is just 16-18millions per month

In recent months, the United States has spent at least an additional $100 million a month to use an alternative, northern route across Central Asia. That cost had been expected to increase as the massive withdrawal of U.S. troops and equipment from Afghanistan accelerated.

Pakistanâ€™s seven-month-long refusal to allow U.S. and NATO supplies to cross its territory into Afghanistan is costing the United States an additional $100 million a month to fund alternative routes, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday

I know that the government will not do anything except issue some silly comments against brutality even after this attack. I do not issue comments, I believe in taking action.
â€œâ€
Imran Khan, leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf

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comment of Imran khan after Salala checkpost.

We need someone who can take action without any fear..we have seen what usa is capable in afghanistan.and we thereby welcome any action they can take in order to end any kind of ties with USA for the sake of future of Pakistan.ateast after ending ties with them terrorist activies will stop in Pakistan

Because
*you are getting a free of cost route to afghanistan
*You got an army that is fighting a war for you with there own people.
*Heck the nato trucks dont even pay the toll plaza tax let alone official tax.

But i will blame only our leaders.why the heck they dont charge each and every truck.

so after the closure of Supply through pakistan.the cost through the other altervative route was 6time more.than through Pakistan